Death
Truman was alone at his lodge when he and his 16 cats are presumed to have died (along with 56 other people elsewhere in the disaster area) in the eruption on May 18. A pyroclastic flow engulfed the Spirit Lake area, destroying the lake and burying the site of his lodge under 150 feet (46 m) of volcanic landslide debris. A new lake eventually formed on a much higher elevation.
His sister Geraldine expressed that she found it hard to accept the reality of his death, commenting, "I don't think he made it. But I thought if they would let me fly over and see for myself that Harry's lodge is gone, then maybe I'd believe it for sure."
The 1980 event was the deadliest and most destructive volcanic eruption in the history of the United States of America. A total of 57 people are known to have died, and more were left homeless when the ash falls and pyroclastic flows destroyed or buried 200 houses. In addition to Truman, notable photojournalist Reid Blackburn and volcanologist David Alexander Johnston were killed.
Read more about this topic: Harry Randall Truman
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death to people choked between walls and curtains, is only a light and living slumber to the man who sleeps afield.”
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